I’ve been feeling uncharacteristically cranky for the last week or so. Every time I turned around something seemed to crop up to irritate me. I think it started when I was reading Scheler. I’ve been reading his shorter work Ressentiment (a phenomenological study of resentment) in spare moments, and for the most part, have been fascinated and intrigued. The cool thing about phenomenology is that is starts with human experience, with the way we actually experience different things in our everyday lives, and then goes from there to get at the essence of what we are experiencing. This means that as you read it, you can relate to what the writer is saying, and see how what they’re talking about applies to your life. I was getting a lot out of what Scheler said, thinking that here was a man who understood things.

And then, like running into a brick wall, the man turned misogynist on me. From making excellent sense, he suddenly started spouting some of the most hateful batshit wack stuff ever. Women, he said, were more prone to resentment because they’re just naturally more vengeful. This is proved because all the classical godesses are so vicious. Plus, you know, witches. And of course, since women spend all their time and energy competing for male attention, they’re more likely to feel wounded when things don’t go their way. He includes some rather nasty comments about old maids, and then goes into a totally bizarre tangent about how industrialization destroys femininity, so only the women who “lack specifically feminine charms” will survive. The “purer feminine types” who don’t have wealthy families to support them will inevitably be forced into prostitution, since, of course, the only thing real women are good for is sex. And then, like he’s suddenly run out of crazy-sauce, Scheler goes right back to making sense again. It was like for a page and a half he took a drop down the rabbit hole, then popped out again back into reality. So utterly bizarre.

Anyway, reading this wackitude made me, shall we say, a little cranky. It wasn’t just having someone I was starting to trust suddenly turn hatefully weird on me, some of those things he said about old maids stung! I wasn’t just me, but also my girl Edith Stein, his contemporary and (at times) co-worker, who probably had to deal with this crap on a regular basis. I knew that she had to fight to get her education, but I hadn’t fully appreciated how unpleasant it must have been at times. Thinking about that made me not only cranky, but sad for a woman I’ve grown to appreciate and love.

Then, when I was the craft fair last Sunday, I was talking about my product line with Sarasvati, who suggested that I branch out into things for babies. You see, while the garlands and pennants are enough to fill an Etsy shop, they aren’t really enough for a craft fair booth. You need more stuff to keep people browsing through until they find something they want to buy. This is something I’d thought about before, but when I thought about it more seriously on Sunday, something hit me that I hadn’t felt for a long time. Specifically, one of my deepest desires since I was a child has been to be a mother. There have been times when this desire has been stronger, and times when I barely felt it at all, but it’s never really gone away. A long time ago I made a decision that I never wanted to be the kind of woman who is obsessed with getting married and having children, or the kind of woman who has a raging fire alarm for a biological clock. So I let go of my dreams of children, worked on being content and happy with my life, started saying “if I get married” instead of “when,” and for the most part, was fairly successful at becoming what one of my favorite bloggers would call a Seraphic Single. While I would be blissfully happy to welcome Mr. Right if he suddenly showed up at Theology On Tap one night (or better yet, at swing dancing), I am determined to enjoy the life God has given me, even if it doesn’t currently (and may never) include a husband and children.

All this is well and good, but on Sunday when I started thinking about spending hours lovingly crafting baby items to sell to women I don’t know, devoting a major portion of my life to thinking about babies, designing items for babies, etc., I suddenly got swamped with a flood of emotion. I may have surrendered my desire to have children, but it didn’t go away. In some ways it would be super easy to sew up some adorably cute blankets and bibs, maybe knit some baby socks, but I don’t know if I could take it emotionally. It would be like rubbing salt into the wound on a daily basis. Except, maybe instead it might be healing, a way to express my love for children even though I don’t have any. On Wednesday Diva told me about how much her baby son loves the blanket I knit for him, how it’s the only thing that will comfort him when he’s cranky in the car. I also remember how much joy I got when LM would text me about how much her baby loved the blanket I knit for him. Perhaps if I thought about the babies I was making these things for instead of myself, it could be as much of an expression of love as when I was making those blankets. I’m still turning these thoughts over in my head, and I don’t know quite where I’m going to end up with it. But it’s not easy working through these things.

Usually, one of the things that always makes me feel better, not matter what, is dancing. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been in an abysmally black mood, gone dancing, and left feeling a million times better. On Wednesday I headed off to dancing hoping for the same miracle to happen again. It didn’t. There was a live band, which was nice, except I wasn’t feeling their music. It just didn’t make me want to dance. I don’t know why – it sounded swingy and bouncy, and ragtime-lovely. And yet the only times I wanted to dance enough to go grab a partner was in the DJ’d parts during the band breaks. Consequently, I didn’t dance much, which got more and more discouraging as the night went on. Plus, I really missed Sky. When I left dancing, I was feeling just as cranky as when I arrived.

On Thursday I headed to Theology On Tap. The speaker was an adorable young married couple who told the story of their courtship and engagement. It was so Devout Catholic cute it could have been sickening, except the couple was so likable you couldn’t help but enjoy them. Did I mention that the wife was about eight months pregnant and (what else) adorable in her maternity wear? Needless to say, this did not make me any less cranky.

On Friday, finally, the black mood started to break. I read a little more Scheler, who reassuringly showed no further signs of impending insanity. Then I headed off to a bonfire out at Grace’s house. Hello Nurse was there with her firstborn daughter, a tiny scrap of an infant just the right size for snuggling in the crook of your arm. Hello Nurse generously allowed me to abscond with the baby for quite a long time, even though there were both an aunt, uncle, and grandparents competing for her attention. This was, paradoxically, soothing. And then, it was so beautiful out at Grace’s place. It’s on the edge of her Grandparents farm, with wheat fields all around, and clear skies that show the stars. It was a perfect night for a bonfire, just cold enough to make the fire’s warmth welcome, not so cold it was uncomfortable. The company was great. I had good conversations, and laughed until I cried. And as I left, for the first time in days, I wasn’t cranky anymore.

It’s been an interesting week. To begin with, I did not start my new career as Marian the Librarian on Wednesday after all. It seems that there is some paperwork that needs to be completed by HR before I can start. So on Wednesday I went down, turned in my paperwork, let them photocopy my driver’s license (proof that I actually exist and am a legal US citizen and all), and then headed off to work the desk at our weekly swing dance. It’s been a little frustrating. I don’t mind not starting on Wednesday so much, but until HR gives its ok I can’t get my work schedule. I know that the new job will require some odd hours, including some evenings, so until I know which evenings, it’s a little difficult to plan things. For instance, I want to hang out with Ani and Johnsy, and maybe watch some West Wing, something we haven’t done in way, way too long. But until I know which evenings I’ll be free, the best I can say is that we could do it on a particular evening, probably. Which drives me a little nuts.

Also this week, the Swing Club started back up with its usual bang. This time Bounce and I taught basic East Coast Swing to 105 students, almost evenly balanced between leads and follows (a miracle!). Lots of them stayed to dance afterwards, which was great. Madame President had been thinking hard all summer about the club, the lessons, and had come up with lots of ideas to try out. I think a lot of them worked, and helped the evening be a great success.

In other news, I’ve started reading Philosophy again. It’s been a long time for me. I think it was so hard when my school plans crashed and burned that I couldn’t even think about it for a while. Plus, I’m much better about reading things that take actual effort when I have a class or other deadline to motivate me. However, recently a new friend e-mailed me an article about (among other things) the philosophy of Max Scheler, a German philosopher who was a huge influence on John Paul II. It was a fascinating article, particularly since I’d been curious about Scheler since JohnJohn was so enthusiastic about him back in the day. Also, Scheler has a connection to Edith Stein, my own personal favorite modern saint, patron to single Catholic women everywhere, and the subject of one of the first big research papers I did. Anyway, PJ’s paper inspired me to finally actually read me some Scheler, so last week found me looking up Scheler on Amazon and ordering Ressentiment, a phenomenological study of resentment. It came a few days ago, and I’ve been reading it in small chunks when I get a chance ever since. I still haven’t gotten past the Introduction, but so far it’s been fascinating.

People keep asking me if I’m “ready” for the long holiday weekend coming up, as if it were some sort of terrifying challenge we were all going to have to face and triumph over. Granted, one more day to sleep in is always welcome, but it’s one day, folks. I think I can handle it. So far it does look like it’ s going to be full. Last night Mom decided that we were going to have a family cookout. First she tried to get Rosie to agree to host it at our house, but Rosie (thankfully) was able to plead the current state of painting/home renovation related turmoil our apartment seems to live in. So it’s going to be over at the Family Homestead after all. I will, as always, be making potato salad. It’s rather nice to have a dish that’s so universally loved, though I think I’m going to get very bored of it right about, say, Monday. A couple of the guys from our Catholic Life young adult group are having a cookout on Monday too, followed by saying a rosary together at the Lourdes Grotto at Bergamo. It sounds like a nice, Good Catholic time.

I should also mention that, as of yesterday, I have completely transferred all of the blog posts from my old xanga blog to here on WordPress. So, if you would like, you can check out “The Vault” in the right hand column, and find all my blog posts going back to February of 2005. Enjoy!

14 came home last night. It was so, so good to see him. He was so jetlagged it was a miracle he was still standing, and so occupied with signing off on all the paperwork people kept handing him that he didn’t even notice me standing at his elbow until someone said, “Looks like someone’s happy to see you.” and pointed to me. It was so much fun.

I’m going to Notre Dame this weekend. Well, actually I’m leaving tonight. The Duchess is picking me up right after class. We’re going to go to Wednesday Night Swing for a little while (I need to get at least a little dancing in…) and then she’s driving me down to the train station in Cincinnati where I will hop on a train to Chicago. I’ll be on the train all night, then hang out in Chicago tomorrow until it’s time to take the train to South Bend. There’s lots of fun things to do in Chicago, so I’m not worried about occupying my time. What I really need to do, however, is find a nice coffee-shop/bookstore cubbyhole and bury my nose in books for the afternoon. On Monday I need to have notes to show my prof (if not the rough draft) for the section of my paper on modern uses of modesty as a resistance value. I think I’m about ready to write the Muslim section, but the modern feminist section needs some serious work, and I haven’t looked at the book I’m using by Alice von Hildebrand since August.

The good part of going to Notre Dame (besides that I’m going for the Edith Stein Conference, and Edith Stein rocks my world) is that The Young Queen is also going, and we’re going to be staying with her sister, who is an Architecture grad student there. I miss my friend so much. I can’t wait to see her. An entire weekend with her is riches. Hurrah!

Another God-appointment story. So yesterday Queen was showing me around Marquette Unversity (that’s where Queen goes to school). We had been talking about how much Queen loves it there, but how hard it’s been for her there without really good, close friendships with other Christian women to sustain her. We were on the way to see the Joan of Arc chapel when I looked over, and recognized the book that a young woman at one of the sidewalk tabels was reading. It was Edith Stein’s doctoral dissertation On The Problem of Empathy, which I wrestled with hard all during my family vacation last month. (Usually, if something is in English, Bernadette can understand it… Humility = a good thing!)

This is not all that common of the book, and when I saw it, I had to go say hi. Turns out the young woman just transferred to Marquette from Wheaton. She’s in the process of getting her doctorate in philosophy, and is thinking about joining the Catholic Church this year. She was introduced to Edith Stein just last year, and has been reading her as much as she can. She’s just barely started doing a little work on the Theology of the Body. She had just arrived on campus a few days before, and had been feeling very lost and didn’t even know where to look for the kind of Christian friends she knew she needed. Then she’s sitting at a table outside, working on Stein, and Queen walks by with me, the only person we know who would recognize that particular book cover at twenty paces, on the one day in ten years that I happen to be on Marquette campus. And so we meet, and we talk, and we tell our stories, and we exchange information, and a connection is made, and some of God’s daughters find each other. And it’s good.

5:00 pm: The Duchess and Sae finally arrive with direction signs and the red carpet. I set them to laying out the carpet while I go put up signs. While doing that, I find Lana wandering the campus, looking for KU. I direct the lost lamb to the rest of the party. Java Joe calls to say that he can’t leave Cincinnati until 6pm, so will have to meet us on the red carpet. Spain is still MIA. Bubba is coming with the rest of the family as fast as he can.

5:30 pm: Having done as much as we can at the theatre, we head over to the McGiness Center. Mr. Collins and Lana unload my car. The group that was in the multipurpose room until 6pm is wrapping up early, so we’ll be able to get in to setup sooner than we thought.

6:00 pm: I grab Boy-O and head home to get the cakes. They look gorgeous and the icing has firmed up a little in the air conditioning (a good thing). We transport them back to the McGiness Center without a hitch.

6:15 pm: I set up my laptop for DJing. There’s a cord I need to connect to the sound box. The facilities guy assured me earlier that he had one I could use. I go to get it from him. He says he doesn’t have it after all. I am handing my car keys to Mr. Collins to go to the nearest Radio Shack and buy one when the facilities guy comes back. He does have one. We test the sound system. Bobby Darin’s “Hello, Dolly” sounds marvelous. The sound is good to go.

6:55 pm: We start wrapping up. Indy realizes that she forgot to ever eat dinner, and needs something now if she’s going to make it through the evening. I give her my house key so she can go to my place (closest) and get something.

7:10 pm: We pile into cars, head back over to the theatre, and run down to the dressing rooms to change. I get into my dress, and take my hair out of pin curls.

7:20 pm: Cell phones around the room start ringing. Indy is calling. She doesn’t have the DVD of the movie – do any of us have it? We don’t. She’s trying to figure out where she left it.

7:30 pm: I have lipstick on half my mouth. My phone rings again. It’s Eyore – he’s in the car with some friends, and because of the construction on Stewart Street, can’t follow the directions I gave him. How does he get here? I give him directions, then finish my lipstick.

7:40 pm: Indy arrives. The DVD is at home, but she has brought one of the extras we made to give out.

7:45 pm: I hit the red carpet. Java Joe and Spain are there, looking more Hollywood that you can believe. There are so many people swarming in the lobby (I later estimate that we had a crowd of about 250). Everyone looks great. Two guys are wearing kilts (so cool). MDoS and Bouncy Boy are both wearing their Mess Dress Uniforms. Johnnycakes and Bear are wearing tails. Johnnycakes is also wearing his top hat and spats – very swank!

8:00 pm: We start herding people into the theatre. The DVD we gave the theatre tech doesn’t have the outtakes and extras. Rosie and AnniPotts are going home to get the DVD with those. BMIWW is there with her whole family, including Temple (one of the stars of our movie), Cowboy, Sunshine, Drama Queen, Maximus, and her husband The Lieutenant Colonel, who only the night before arrived back in the states from serving a year in Kuwait.

8:05 pm: As I am heading for the elevator (I’m not doing stairs in these heels!) to tell the theatre tech that the other DVD is on its way I hear the music for the opening credits playing, and people cheering as names appear. I find out later that one of those names is mine.

8:10 pm: I sit down to watch the movie, and to enjoy people’s reactions. It’s awesome. They laugh a lot, even at stuff I hadn’t realized was funny.

8:20 pm: Rosie and AnniPotts arrive with the other DVD. I take it up to the theatre tech. Everything is now accounted for, and I start to relax for the first time. The crowd is enjoying the movie hugely.

9:00 pm: The movie ends to sustained applause. We show the Outtakes and Maude: A Memorial. People really enjoy that too.

9:30 pm: The movie is over, it’s time to head over to the McGiness Center and party! Sae and The Duchess had made maps showing people how to get from the theatre to the McGiness Center. Problem is, the maps have all been left behind at the McGiness Center. Indy asks all those who actually know how to get there to raise their hands, and for everyone else to please talk to one of those people.

9:45 pm: I throw all my stuff in the dressing room back in my bag, and head for McGiness, leading a caravan of cars behind me.

10:00 pm: party. This part is kind of a blur. I danced a lot. That was really good, and what I’d been looking forward to through everything. People really liked the cakes. Lots of people came that I wasn’t really expecting – a lot of swing people, and some of the Theological Boys. Everyone seemed to have a really good time, which was what all of us wanted.

11:40 pm: I queue up the last three songs: Huey Lewis, “If This Is It;” Ella Fitzgerald, “Lullaby of Birdland;” Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs, “Stay.” I dance to the first one with Bouncy Boy. Afterwards he keeps his arm around me for a little bit and asks me if I had a good time. “Yes,” I say, “I danced a lot. It was what I wanted.” “Good.” He says.

Midnight: We start taking everything down and getting out. I wrap the remnants of cake in saran wrap, and don’t even try to supervise the rest of the cleanup. I am so tired I’m leaning against the walls so that I don’t fall down.

12:30 am: Somehow I end up in my car with most of my belongings. I drive The Mechanic to his car, and then drive the three blocks home. Once there I turn off the car and just sit still for a moment. There is an after-party at my sisters’ house, which I know that I am too tired to go to. Then I look in the back seat, and see the roll of posters I had printed that afternoon and totally forgot to bring in to the party. I had put some up at the theatre, but I had meant to give copies to cast members that wanted them. I decide to take them over to the after-party.

1:30 am: Home again. I carry half my stuff up onto the front porch, and pull out my keychain. My house key isn’t on it. I never got it back from Indy. I don’t know where Indy is. For a moment I am tempted to just start banging on the door in hopes that someone will wake up and let me in, but there are toddlers asleep inside and I can’t bring myself to do it. I call my parents’ house. No one answers. I call my sisters’ house. Rosie tells me that Indy is dogsitting for some friends, and so she’s over there. I am so tired that I am crying on the phone. I call where Indy is dogsitting. She’s still up. I go to get the key.

2:30 am: Home again. Third time’s the charm. I unload my stuff from the car. Once inside it takes me a little while to get up the energy to go upstairs.

3:00 am: Once upstairs I finally change out of my green silk dress and sit on my bed. I need to take out my contacts and wash off my makeup. I take out my cell phone to hook it up to the charger, but the charger is still in my bookbag. That’s the last thing I remember.

And that’s a day in the life of a movie producer/actress. On Sunday I was still so tired I mostly crept around like an invalid all day. Today I’m doing better. It ocurred to me this afternoon when I was packing my bookbag for school that I could maybe leave the folder of movie related papers at home. I’ve been keeping it there for seven months now. It’s weird to think I’m close to done (there are a few loose ends still to tie up). I didn’t take it out yet, but maybe tomorrow I will.

Will there be another movie? Yes. When will it come? I don’t know. We have some ideas that different people are working on, but none of them have produced an actual screenplay yet. I have an idea for a modern dress version of Twelfth Night. We’ll see what happens with that.

What’s next for me? Well, I have this 30-35 page paper on the phenomenonology of Edith Stein and the Theology of the Body that’s due a week from Thursday. I’ll let you know how that goes…

Sarah Whittle, coral stitch: You can use different thread thicknesses or change the angle of the knot to give different effects. Coral stitch can be used on straight or curved lines as well as being used as a textured filling stitch. When using as a filling stitch place the knots into spaces between the knots of the previous row .